Borgeo’s Chosen Tank Guide V1.0

Borgeos Chosen Tank Guide – PvE

Hi guys,  first off why am I even writing this guide?  Well ive been a tank on most MMOs and have played a Chosen extensively as my main in this one and I have seen the occasional scrub tank.  This guide will be aimed at Chosen but im sure Blackguards and Black Orcs may be able to take certain things away from it.

 What is a Tank

A tank is, I would say, the most important member of the group, without a solid tank you will be going nowhere fast.  You have to be unselfish in that you must forgo seeing the “big numbers” for the greater good, that being the ultimate destruction of your foe(s).

Coming from Everquest I have the old school mindset of tanks that I am the leader, the pace setter and the mediator for the group.

The first thing I will say is that if you are going to tank anything, at least have the decency to check up on it first.

There is nothing worse than a tank whos first time it is in the instance who hasn’t bothered to even read up on anything to do with it, be it looking at a map, checking boss tactics or special trash events (LV)

Obviously guild and alliance runs are more forgiving on pace but a standard PUG who have done the instance multiple times will be looking for a tank who can accelerate them through it.

 What is my role

I apply these rules whilst tanking:

1)      Keep the mobs beating on me

2)      Stay alive or 1) goes out the window

That’s it, if the mobs are on you, you will win.

There are a few ways to sustain 1, and some to help 2

First off ill show you the new Chosen tank spec, this is a recent (as of last patch) spec which cuts away some of the talents from the corruption tree in favour of some discord.

http://www.wardb.com/career.aspx?id=13#7:128:7:128:9:512:25:8353:504::8362::::8371:8372:8373:613

(This is at RR0, at RR40 stick the point in quake, Im a biff and cant remember how to get the career builder to do it.)

Bit of a weird spec and only 8 points in our tanking tree!!!!  I can explain!

Back in the day a heavy corruption build was the way forward, Oppression mixed in with Crippling Strikes led to a lot of reduced damage however the bonuses no longer stack.

Therefore it was my decision to lose out on Oppression to keep crippling strikes and the bonuses to the Dread Auras.

A quick explanation of tree choices:

Crippling Strikes: I opted to keep this over Oppression as it appears earlier in the tree for a flat 25% reduction when I crit, I hover my crit around 10% when tanking so this is up more or less when it needs to be.

Mixed Defences:  Chosen are a parry tank at the end of the day, this is one of the better tactics we have, with this and suppression, your parry will be boosted very high.

Quake:  The staple crowd control knockdown, still too useful to pass up.

Tactics

Crippling Strikes: See Above

Mixed Defences: See Above

Menace: Tanking rule 1 applies here, more threat = more mobs beating on you!

Flawless Armour:  In the past ive lambasted this talent for not doing what the tooltip says.  Guess what?  Its fixed.  It is now a 10% decrease in chance to be crit.  The tooltip is still bugged but it works. 

The synergy between these tactic choices is immense, the only real downside is the lack of Power from the Gods which means you really do have to manage your AP.  However your morale choices cushion this a bit.

Morales

My choices for morales are the following:

 1: Inevitable Changing

2. Tzeentches Amplification

3. Sprout Carapace

4. Immaculate Defence

Now some of these are questionable over others so feel free to swap them out, in particular 2 and 3.

1. Take for the AP refill only, very helpful
2. Either Shield wall or this, however I prefer this as if you aren’t taking damage you aren’t getting the aggro from guard, id rather take a massive 8k heal as that’s more threat for me!
3. Again taken for the AP regen, however you might want to consider taking the 50% damage reduction instead
4. Quite simply the most amazing Morale ever.

Auras

I use twister to help me twist 3 auras constantly and I would recommend getting it as Chosen are ALLLLLLL about the auras.

The three I pretty much twist without change are:

Dreadful Fear: More Str for me, less for them

Discordant Instability: Resists buff/debuff

Dreadful Fear: Constant AOE damage = constant aoe threat.

Some may argue over using Corrupting Wrath but honestly its not worth it and ill explain why in a moment.

Tanking Stats

Of the normal stats only two are overly useful for the tanking Chosen in PvE.

Wounds and Initiative.

But Borg! What about the tanking stat!! Toughness! 

I say screw your toughness, it’s a great stat in RvR where your average person is putting out 250dps and you can reduce that by 100dps actually making a dent.

Against a boss hitting you for 5k, its not worth it, better off being at wounds cap and having enough initiative to not be crit than reduce his dps by 100 (when its around 2.5k already)

Other stats to stack:

A bit of melee crit for crippling strikes procs.

Block!  Honestly, ive currently got my block just over 30%.  Reason being is you want those mixed defences procs,  at least that way you can easily have 90% block+parry.

Parry: Anything left can go here.

 

How to Tank Trash

Im not going to teach you to suck eggs but ill let you know my rotation for Trash.  Most of the time ill take out Flawless Armour in favour of Power from the Gods, the extra AP is needed for holding aggro on Multiple mobs.

Ok usually I will target the mob I think I need to build most threat on, most of the time this will be the mob that needs to get burnt first.

Open with a taunt on this mob, wait for the whole pack to close distance then Quake, hit Blast Wave, and start cycling auras.  Hit challenge to hold them all.  Use Supression on the main mob, then tab through each hitting ravage for extra threat.  Refresh each AOE as they come up.

That’s really it.

 

How to Tank Bosses

Some bosses have crazy mechanics where you need to hold things back, but a basic tank and spank boss I use this rotation.

(Flawless Armour now slotted so low AP regen)

Open with Taunt, hit Blastwave then Supression.  If melee dps are in the group hit Tooth, if not wait out Supression again, keep cycling auras and refresh Taunt.  

The key thing to keep up over everything else is Suppression, an extra 25% chance to parry is huge.

Closing Points

The Key things in my mind when building a good tank suit is that you have enough HP to survive (aim for 10k with liniment as a base) and that you can become uncrittable with Flawless Armour.  Be sure to ask any Zealot you group with for the Init buff and not Str (doesn’t stack with aura anyway)

The main thing killing tanks in instances are crits, I used to get crit a lot!  And it was the crits taking me out when they shouldn’t, this puts undue pressure on your healers.  With this new spec ive been told its so much easier to keep my ass up.

Don’t get disheartened by the class and think that Chosen are useless tanks, ive solo tanked everything in the game so far (Sure Nkari isn’t dead yet but im still solo tanking her) so anyone saying Chosen are gimp tanks can go take a running jump.

Ill also add that the tank spec is god damn awful for PvP, get used to respeccing…..

Magus GO HERE!

I dont play aMagus really.  But those who do go here

Making too many plans makes me forget!

Rushing around trying to get a new Hockey stick for the tournament this weekend led me to forget about things I had signed up for in WAR.
Lets start over though, I eventually managed to get a new Hockey Stick and got home quite late.  I immediately jumped onto WoW and went on an Obsidian Sanctum 25 raid.

I must admit my DPS WAS lacking, I really think ill respec now.  Didn’t win anything but the fight….. god how easy, kinda disappointed with it really.

 

I then got reminded that I needed to go tank Lairs for our alliance.. whoops!

 

I got on in enough time to go to Tomb of the Sun.  We managed to down him (interesting mechanic, if your no good at jumping then don’t apply!) he didn’t drop a weapon anyone could use but the pocket item was kinda OP.  15 Secs where your opponent cant Block or Parry….. ouch!  Thank god I only PvE on my tank now!

 

Tonight im debating what ill be doing, Part of me wants to crack out some WoW but I need to go meet the Hockey team around 8.  Maybe I can play for an hour or two then head out.

 

We shall see.

Ding 80… again…

Well not so much again in WoW but again in the fact that im at level cap again.  Yay…….

Still once hitting 80 I worked on my hit gear (which actually involved dumping on a load of my level 70 raid epics again haha) and then went to heroic Utgard Pinnacle… what a way to learn a zone! Heroic!

Well I was top DPS, and second on overall damage (I was dead for the whole 3^rd boss) but won a nice staff.

My main aims are to level my tailoring so that I can make my own gear then just work on getting badges for other pieces.  As soon as my hit is capped ill look at trying to get a raid spot somewhere.

Im considering swapping out of Demonology too into maybe a destro spec again, ill do some number crunching to see how it stacks up.

 

Might not be a Lost Vale run tomorrow now as I have a hockey tournament all weekend.

Final Stretch

Here I am again then, one level away from cap.  Again its in WoW.  After the debacle of our internet dying I dedicated my time to levelling some more in WoW.

I am in Zul’Drak at the moment and managed to hit level 79, ive only got just over 700k exp to go to cap yet again.

I did get that final level feeling that I usually get, the one where you know every little bit of exp is a little bit closer.

 

I should get it tomorrow as tonight will be trying to hit wing 3 of LV in WAR.  Ive been told that the timer goes poof tonight so im hoping there is enough time to go in, I don’t want to lose out on the whole wing due to my net being crap.

 

Ive starting saving hit gear for my lock too, my aim is to get as close to cap come 80 as possible with the gear ive got, then move on to upgrading around it.  Ive seen a couple of tailoring things that look good so ill most likely level that next.  Then we shall see where we go from there.

 

Im actually looking forward to LV as I got my DP shoulders on the last run and haven’t tested them yet, bah get me in there!!!

 

Rock on

Thwarted by ISP

Lost Vale didn’t go ahead, as last night around 1800 our internet stopped working.  A quick call to BT revealed not a lot other than they have had a major system error and weren’t even answering the phones.

 

Hopefully tonight will be better

A Plethora of Levels…. and Lewt!!

I don’t know if Blizzard has made the levelling game significantly easier in wrath or whether my new questhelper mod is making it quicker, but im averaging 4-5hours a level.

 

Now I remember levelling my Lock in Vanilla WoW and the exp from 59-60 took me 6 hours, although that was pure grind.

 

Anyway im now level 78!  I cant believe how good levelling is with your flying mount again!  So much easier, im still happy with the quests in Northrend too, ive only just started in the Sholozar Basin (2 levels to go and still got like 4 zones to do hahaha) and will hopefully get the exp needed for 80 in the next day or so however that all depends on the next thing:

 

LOST VALE!!!  Last night I made a few leadership fuckups which meant that I had to bench Mrs B from the team, which she wasn’t happy about at all…..  The reason being I was attuning two other alliance members and wanted to bring them into the second wing, yet I had also promised a spot for wing two to our usual Choppa.  Mrs B sat out on the proviso that I didn’t think we could get past Gorak with our Dps (Group setup was:  Chosen, DoK, Shaman, Magus, Magus (3GW), Choppa.  Well Butcher died on 2^nd pull after I asked for AOE to stop as the Gnoblar was dying WAAAAAY too fast.

Then we hit the wall that was Gorak.  Without me being able to Co-ordinate mine and Mrs B’s Morales (she blows on 2^nd tank phase a dmg reduction for me) I was eating the floor, that and the healing was lacking any big punch that our Zealot normally provides.

However through co-ordinating with the DoK (Hitting his 30 second block/parry/dodge increaser) and using our main Magus with his pets Taunting, we managed to down him, I have a funny screenshot with my party chat ill dig out lol.

 

Then onto the Tree who has the good graces to drop CHOSEN SHOULDERS!!!!!!!  I cheered out loud!  That was the ward I was concerned wasn’t working, but now ive got it covered, im now 2 pieces DP! (3 with belt).

 

We are hitting wing 3 tonight and if I can find a replacement for the DoK then the husband/wife team of the DoK and Magus will sit for hun.  It may end up that we have our usual team for this instead of the team we were rocking.  Im pretty sure that whatever team we take that we will down everything up to Nkari, but wont kill her.  That’s the way the cookie crumbles but I really do think I need an OT to start with on this one.

 

I forgot to say that Friday was uneventful wing 1 down no problems at all, no decent loot at all.

Warlock Ding 75, and Hello to an Old Friend

I had so much fun in WoW yesterday, sure all I was doing was grinding quests but the thing that made it an outstanding evening?  My friend Avoghaia came online since he finally got my email and we chatted for a good two hours.

 

He also followed me round on his flying mount (damn you Mel!) whilst I piled through quests and even rezzed me when I decided to BASE jump off of a cliff and forgot to SS myself.

 

No real stand out quests for me last night, just happy to get 75.

 

There most likely wont be a lot of WoW played tonight as its Lost Vale night, im taking a couple of new guys in so im hoping we can update their quests sufficiently.

My main aim is to down the first wing for them. If time allows ill take a look at the 2^nd wing but im not optimistic,  one of the ranged DPS only has 2 wards which means her DPS will be lacking, and imho Butcher and Gorak are dps races from the 2^nd wing.

 

Well lets see how far we get anyway

Wow…. Just wow

Bit of a double meaning to that title but here we go.

 

Last night was spent in WoW, like I thought it would be, I don’t feel the need right now to be in WAR, WoW is holding my attention.  Im still looking forward to the new LV run tomorrow but for now im in WoW.

 

I managed to hit level 74 on my Warlock and must admit the levels come fairly easily, im steadily saving the gold needed for my cold weather flying when I get there, and this is a guy who struggled to have 100g in his pocket in TBC HAHA.

 

The other wow of this title is for the Wrathgate quest.  I sat there in awe as the cinematic played out, shocked to the core.  Then meeting Varian and assaulting undercity… classic.

 

I also made the trip to Dalaran and made it my new inn, its about time really, I was still bound in Shattrath, it’s a shame to see how desolate it is now, but that’s how things change I imagine.

 

Not much else to report, will see about 75 tonight, wish me luck.

LV Almost Clear

Doh so close!

 

Monday night saw the team try to continue with the 3^rd wing of LV.  Except there was only 5 of us online.  Our Choppa couldn’t make it, which isn’t as bad as say, a healer.

A quick yell in the alliance turns up no replacements, we decided to run 5 man instead.

Now not the best choice I could have made as the group leader but it actually went well.  We managed to kill off every boss up to Nkari.  Sechar gave us one wipe where I didn’t realise he was going to spawn when he did and so hadn’t explained the fight yet.

We did actually manage to get the Zealot helm, so grats to Bob for that.

 

Nkari was a different kettle of fish. Im not sure how I can solo tank this at all.  After a couple of wipes with the circles and being thrown, we all learnt that but those damn orbs!

The first orb spawn I had no trouble grabbing the pruple orb, boosting my HP to 16.5k, but the second and subsequent spawns it just would not let me pick it up.

Apparantly I was having a blue orb spawn on me and I kept getting that, but I honestly didn’t see the buff on me.

I managed to live through the Dev phase once without the orb when I popped some morales but no chance in me living.

 

I think ill need to research the orbs more as if I AM grabbing a blue on the spawn then its my fault.  I think it might be as on the first orb spawn im instantly getting the purp one without having to move, we shall see.

 

New run scheduled for Friday. Lets see how we do

 
Ive also been playing more of WoW and managed to get my Warlock to level 73.  This is actually pretty good for me, ive been trying to find a UI I like and may finally have found a good one.  But overall Wrath has been pretty good.

Blizzard have learnt from the years of WoW and made quests that are a lot better than kill X and harvest Y.  So far the assault on the Dragon Tower thing (yes it’s a daily but I like it) was great, as was rescuing villager by pulling them onto my griffon! Very cool Blizz.

 

Ill probably play WoW tonight, get some more questing done, im really kinda itching to get myself 80 and start to gear up as I have my eye on a guild already.

 

Oh quick apology, I noticed the custom UI ive been using had blocked out all chat channels.. and I mean ALL! /say /yell /tell /1 /2 /3 all unable to be used… I thought it had been quiet… I hope no instance groups whispered me, im not rude honest it was my UI!!